A specimen of L. anncdena has l)een on exliiliition in the 

 entrance hall of the Brighton Aquarium for more than tMO years. 

 It is kept at a regular temperature of 70 degrees, and is in a very 

 thriving condition, having grown several inches since it has been 

 in the institution, and thickened proportionately. The animal 

 generally lies quietly at the bottom of its tank, rising occasionally 

 to the surface to take in air. It is fed three times weekly on 

 small pieces of raw beef, which it can be observed to eat in a very 

 unusual manner. When the food is thrown in, the mud fish 

 stretches itself leisurely and seizes it, as it comes within reach, 

 between its sharply formed vomerine teeth. After masticating 

 it slowly, it throws it out with a quick jerk and, commencing at 

 the other end, repeats the manoeuvre ; it then again rejects it and 

 subjects it to a third process of mastication before finally 

 swallowing it. The body of the Lejiido^iirii. is fish-like, and 

 covered with small cycloid scales, simply constructed pectoral and 

 ventral limbs are present, with a dorso-caudal fin. The notochord 

 is persistent, but the skull is partly bony, partly cartilaginous, and 

 the costal arches and neural and haemal spines are Avell ossified ; 

 thus it forms a link between the bony and cartilaginous types of 

 fishes. The dentition is composed of a pair of vomerine teeth, 

 and two molars in each jaw. The heart is three chambered, and 

 true lungs exist with rudimentary external branchiae and functional 

 internal ones. 



Living Affinities of LEriDOSiREN. 



Among living fish, the Lepidosiren is most closely related to 

 another " dipnoid, " discovered in the rivers of Queensland, 

 Australia, in 1870. This species was at once, with singular ac- 

 curacy, referred by Mr. Gerard Kreflft, the late curator of the 

 Sidney Museum, to Ceratodus, a genus till then only known by the 

 fossil teeth occurring abimdantlj- in Triassic and rarely in "Oolitic" 

 strata. He also described it "as a gigantic amphibian, and as 

 allied to Lejndosiren," the correctness of which determination has 

 been fully demonstrated by tlio sul)sequent minute investigations 



